that mouse, and my wife jumped down and ran off into another room. I found the mouse in a corner under the sink. The first time I hit it I didn't poke it any on account of getting the poker all tangled up in a lot of dishes in the sink; and I did not hit it any more because the mouse would not stay still. It ran right toward me, and I naturally jumped, as anybody would, but I am not afraid of mice, and when the horrid thing ran up inside the leg of my pantaloons, I yelled to Maria because I was afraid it would gnaw a hole in my garment. There is something real disagreeable about having a mouse inside the leg of one's pantaloons, especially if there is nothing between you and the mouse. Its toes are cold, and its nails are scratchy, and its fur tickles, and its tail feels crawly, and there is nothing pleasant about it, and you are all the time afraid it will try to gnaw out, and begin on you instead of on the cloth. That mouse was next to me. I could feel its every motion with startling and suggestive distinctness. For these reasons I yelled to Maria, and as the case seemed urgent to me I may have yelled with a certain degree of vigor; but I deny that I yelled fire, and if I catch the boy who thought that I did, I shall inflict punishment on his person.

I did not lose my presence of mind for an instant. I caught the mouse just as it was clambering over my knee, and by pressing firmly on the outside of the cloth I kept the animal a prisoner on the inside. I kept jumping around with all my might to confuse it, so that it would not think about biting, and I yelled so that the mice would not hear its squeaks and come to its assistance. A man can't handle many mice at once to advantage.

Maria was white as a sheet when she came into the kitchen, and asked what she should do- as though I could hold the mouse and plan a campaign at the same time. I told her to think of something, and she thought she would throw things at the intruder; but as there was no earthly chance for her to hit the mouse, while every shot took effect on me, I told her to stop, after she had tried two flat-irons and the coalscuttle. She paused for breath; but I kept bobbing around. Somehow I felt no inclination to sit down anywhere. "Oh, Joshua," she cried, "I wish you had not killed the cat." Now, I submit that the wish was born of the weakness of woman's intellect. How on earth did she suppose a cat could get where that mouse was?— rather have the mouse there alone, anyway, than to have a cat prowling around after it. I reminded Maria of the fact that she was a fool. Then she got the teakettle and wanted to scald the mouse. I objected to that process, except as a last resort. Then she got some cheese to coax the mouse down, but I did not dare to let go for fear it would run up. Matters were getting desperate. I told her to think of something else, and I kept jumping. Just as I was ready to faint with exhaustion, tripped over an

iron, lost my hold, and the mouse fell to the floor very dead. I had no idea a mouse could be squeezed to death so easy.

That was not the end of trouble, for before I had recovered my breath a fireman broke in one of the front windows, and a whole company followed him through, and they dragged hose around, and mussed things all over the house, and then the foreman wanted to thrash me because the house was not on fire, and I had hardly got him pacified before a policeman came in and arrested me. Some one had run down and told

him I was drunk, and was killing Maria. It was all Maria and I could do, by combining our eloquence, to prevent him from marching me off in disgrace, but we finally got matters quieted and the house clear.

Now, when mice run out of the cupboard I go outdoors, and let Maria "shoo" them back again. I can kill a mouse, but the fun don't pay for the trouble.

"CURFEW MUST NOT RING TO-NIGHT."

Slowly England's sun was setting o'er the hilltops far away,
Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day,
And the last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair,—
He with footsteps slow and weary, she with sunny, floating hair;
He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful, she with lips all cold and white,
Struggled to keep back the murmur,-

"Curfew must not ring to-night."

"Sexton,” Bessie's white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old, With its turrets tall and gloomy, with its walls dark, damp, and cold, "I've a lover in that prison, doomed this very night to die,

At the ringing of the curfew—and no earthly help is nigh;

Cromwell will not come till sunset," and her lips grew strangely white As she breathed the husky whisper,

"Curfew must not ring to-night."

Bessie," calmly spoke the sexton, every word pierced her young heart Like the piercing of an arrow, like a deadly, poisoned dart,

'Long, long years I've rung the curfew from that gloomy, shadowed tower;

Every evening, just at sunset, it has told the twilight hour:

I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right,

Now I'm old I still must do it.

Curfew it must ring to-night."

Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow,

And within her secret bosom Bessie made a solemn vow.

She had listened while the judges read without a tear or sigh,

"At the ringing of the curfew, Basil Underwood must die."

And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright

In an undertone she murmured,

"Curfew must not ring to-night."

She with quick steps bounded forward, sprung within the old church door,

Left the old man treading slowly paths so oft he'd trod before;
Not one moment paused the maiden, but with eye and cheek aglow
Mounted up the gloomy tower, where the bell swung to and fro,
And she climbed the dusty ladder on which fell no ray of light,
Up and up, her white lips saying,

"Curfew shall not ring to-night."

She has reached the topmost ladder, o'er her hangs the great dark bell; Awful is the gloom beneath her, like a pathway down to hell.

Lo, the ponderous tongue is swinging, 'tis the hour of curfew now, And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath, and paled her brow.

Shall she let it ring? No, never! Flash her eyes with sudden light, And she springs and grasps it firmly

"Curfew shall not ring to-night."

Out she swung, far out, the city seemed a speck of light below,
"Twixt heaven and earth her form suspended, as the bell swung to and
fro;

And the sexton at the bell-rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell,
But he thought it still was ringing fair young Basil's funeral knell.
Still the maiden clung most firmly, and with trembling lips and white,
Said to hush her heart's wild beating,

"Curfew shall not ring to-night."

It was o'er, the bell ceased swaying, and the maiden stepped once more
Firmly on the dark old ladder, where for hundred years before
Human foot had not been planted. The brave deed that she had done
Should be told long ages after, as the rays of setting sun

Should illume the sky with beauty: aged sires with heads of white,
Long should tell the little children

Curfew did not ring that night.

O'er the distant hills came Cromwell; Bessie sees him, and her brow,
Full of hope and full of gladness, has no anxious traces now.

At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands all bruised and torn;
And her face so sweet and pleading, yet with sorrow pale and worn,
Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eye with misty light:
"Go, your lover lives," said Cromwell,―

"Curfew shall not ring to-night."

HOW HE SAVED ST. MICHAEL'S.

MARY A. P. STANSBURY.

'Twas long ago—ere ever the signal gun

That blazed above Fort Sumter had wakened the North as one;

Long ere the wondrous pillar of battle-cloud and fire

Had marked where the unchained millions marched on to their heart's desire.

On roofs and glittering turrets, that night as the sun went down,
The mellow glow of the twilight shone like a jeweled crown,
And, bathed in the living glory, as the people lifted their eyes,
They saw the pride of the city, the spire of St. Michael's, rise

High over the lesser steeples, tipped with a golden ball,
That hung like a radiant planet caught in its earthward fall;
First glimpse of home to the sailor who made the harbor round,
And last slow-fading vision dear to the outward bound.

The gently-gathering shadows shut out the waning light;

The children prayed at their bedsides, as they were wont each night;
The noise of buyer and seller from the busy mart was gone,
And in dreams of a peaceful morrow the city slumbered on.
But another light than sunrise aroused the sleeping street,
For a cry was heard at midnight, and the rush of trampling feet;
Men stared in each other's faces, thro' mingled fire and smoke,
While the frantic bells went clashing, clamorous, stroke on stroke.
By the glare of her blazing roof tree the houseless mother fled,
With the babe she pressed to her bosom shrieking in nameless dread,
While the fire-king's wild battalions scaled wall and capstone high,
And planted their glaring banners against an inky sky.

From the death that raged behind them, and the crush of ruin loud,
To the great square of the city were driven the surging crowd,
Where yet firm in all the tumult, unscathed by the fiery flood,
With its heavenward pointing finger, the church of St. Michael's stood.

But e'en as they gazed upon it there rose a sudden wail,
A cry of horror blended with the roaring of the gale,
On whose scorching wings updriven, a single flaming brand
Aloft on the towering steeple clung like a bloody hand.

"Will it fade?" the whisper trembled from a thousand whitening lips;
Far out on the lurid harbor they watched it from the ships,
A baleful gleam, that brighter and ever brighter shone,
Like a flickering, trembling will-o'-the-wisp to a steady beacon grown.

"Uncounted gold shall be given to the man whose brave right hand,
For the love of the periled city, plucks down yon burning brand!"
So cried the mayor of Charleston, that all the people heard,
But they looked each one at his fellow, and no man spoke a word.

Who is it leans from the belfry, with face upturned to the sky-
Clings to a column and measures the dizzy spire with his eye?
Will he dare it, the hero undaunted, that terrible, sickening height,
Or will the hot blood of his courage freeze in his veins at the sight?

But see! he has stepped on the railing, he climbs with his feet and his

hands,

And firm on a narrow projection, with the belfry beneath him, he stands!

Now once, and once only, they cheer him

breath,

- a single tempestuous

And there falls on the multitude gazing a hush like the stillness of death.

Slow, steadily mounting, unheeding aught save the goal of the fire,
Still higher and higher, an atom, he moves on the face of the spire;
He stops! Will he fall? Lo! for answer, a gleam like a meteor's
track,

And, hurled on the stones of the pavement, the red brand lies shattered and black!

Once more the shouts of the people have rent the quivering air;
At the church door mayor and council wait with their feet on the stair,
And the eager throng behind them press for a touch of his hand,—
The unknown saviour, whose daring could compass a deed so grand.

But why does a sudden tremor seize on them as they gaze?
And what meaneth that stifled murmur of wonder and amaze?
He stood in the gate of the temple he had periled his life to save,
And the face of the unknown hero was the sable face of a slave!